enevnirtonm
Hairy Sausages &
The Deepwater Horizon... “Deepwater Horizon” sounds like a sci-fi film starring Bruce Willis out to save the world from imminent disaster (again) but sadly it’s not fiction; especially for the communities on the Gulf Coast of America…
One hell of a kerfuffle in the gulf.
By Sharpy
View from the Carve balloon.
S
eptember 2009 was a happy, high-fiving time for the Deepwater Horizon, a Korean built, ultra-deepwater, semi-submersible, drilling rig as it set a world record for the deepest oil well ever drilled at a whopping 10,685m, just over 6.5 miles, which is deeper than Mt Everest is high. Just over six months later the rig, leased to BP, was splashed all over the news for all the wrong reasons as on April 20 this year British Petroleum’s deep-drilling bad ass had a bit of an accident… Of course you know this, as apart from the Iceland volcano’s continuing ash laden bum-burp and some election thing it’s been the dominant story on the news. Fishing grounds are closed, local livelihoods are ruined, a slow oily death awaits the wildlife and it could take months to fix the leak properly. So what the hell happened? It’s more a case of what didn’t happen, the explosion and subsequent fire was caused by a blowout, in essence a methane bubble rushing back up the drilling hole. The top of the hole was fitted with a BOP (blowout preventer) but crucially not fitted with a remote control to activate it in the event of a rig evacuation. So the BOP failed initially and the failsafe ‘deadman’ switch designed to close the wellhead if communication is lost from the rig also didn’t activate. Lacking the remote option (a legal requirement on North Sea rigs, but deemed too costly by US govt) there was no way to stop the oil flow once the rig was toast. 11 workers are missing presumed dead and 17 were injured in the initial explosion (ironically seven of the injured were BP executives on board to celebrate the projects safety record!) and the resulting fire was so intense it melted paint off the rescue ships… Skip back to February 2009, BP filed a 52-page exploration and environmental impact plan with the US authorities for the Deepwater Horizon well. The plan stated that it was “unlikely
40 carve surfing magazine
that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities”, and that “due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.” Whether they modelled what would happen if the rig suffered an explosion, caught fire, then sank is a moot point. At the estimated rate of 5,000 barrels it will take less than two months for the current spill to surpass the 270,000 barrels spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, so it could well be the worst oil spill ever unless BP get a fix, so by the time you read this it could well hold that grim record as well. At press time the fix isn’t going at all well… As it is the booms, burning and the ‘implemented response capabilities’ are not protecting the fragile Gulf coast, an area already ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Novel protection is being provided for the beaches by ‘hairy sausages’, nylon tights filled with hair and fur from hairdressers, pet groomers and farmers. The hair does a wonderful job of mopping up crude… bizarre but true. Could the same thing happen in the North Sea? Thankfully not, as the rigs there operate in shallower water and are stood firmly on the seabed. The deepwater rigs like the DH float, and hence are liable to making a bit of a mess if shit gets real and they sink. One possible down side for us is the Loop Current in the Gulf feeds into the Gulf Stream so in the months to come we could be looking at lovely tarry crude lumps washing up on beaches here, which as we know from the Prestige disaster means poo like streaks on your boards, carpets and just about anything else once it gets on your feet. Which is nice. FYI: If you’re interested in doing a bit of drilling exploration in your own time it costs $496,800 a day to lease a similar rig.
Boom!